Rules For Thee
Lifted from the comments, an item you may have missed.
In our discussion about The Activist-Wanker Caste and its signature disdain for reciprocation, I wrote:
Well, sometimes an example of what you’re talking about comes along that seems almost too on-the-nose. Specifically,
It turns out that Ms Lydia Gribbin, one of the five protestors, had assumed that only other people’s lifestyles should be curtailed, that only other people’s plans can be thwarted with impunity.
Update, via the comments:
I was reminded of this post from deep in the archives, in which former Guardian columnist Mr Sunny Hundal boasted of his support for Plane Stupid, an activist group whose members vandalised airports and obstructed runways, disrupting the journeys of thousands of would-be passengers. A group whose pronouncements included “Aviation is mostly unnecessary.”
Mr Hundal wanted us to know that,
Though not, I suspect, quite as much pleasure as his own extensive air travel adventures – flying halfway around the planet, twice, to India then California – adventures that were excitedly announced shortly before his declaration of support for Plane Stupid: “Honestly, I love these guys.”
FredTheFourth adds,
Well, it helps to bear in mind that such ostentatious pieties are very often a kind of camouflage for quite vain and obnoxious people. People whose own hypocrisies and dishonesties, however glaring, do not appear to embarrass them, or alter their behaviour. Consequently, yes, they’re difficult to shame.
They’re the kind of unspanked little tossers who gleefully vandalise petrol stations, rendering them unusable, while applauding themselves, and who conflate “not being heard” with not being obeyed. The kind of preening dolts who film themselves pouring oil onto busy roads, an act morally analogous to sabotaging the brakes of random cars and motorbikes.
This is who they are.
These are people for whom vandalising art galleries, with hammers, and physically obstructing thousands of people, including emergency vehicles, for hours, and doing it over and over again – is somehow “peaceful,” benign, and terribly high-minded.
From here, it looks more like a narcissist’s power game, a kind of recreational sociopathy. I mean, if someone gets their jollies from screwing over random people and watching their victims’ exasperation and pleading – if that’s what makes our mighty warriors feel powerful and important – then the term recreational sociopathy does not seem inapt.
Went looking for the usual list of posh girl’s names. Was not disappointed.
Well, Lydia, Poppy, and their pals do fit the standard pattern. Again, from the Activist Wanker Caste post:
It’s as if there’s a script to follow.
Can I volunteer for jury service?
Was she planning to get there by glider?
Apparently she is not sufficiently dedicated to the cause to give up air travel.
I was reminded of this post from deep in the archives, in which Mr Sunny Hundal boasted of his support for Plane Stupid, an activist group whose members vandalised airports and obstructed runways, delaying thousands of passengers, and whose pronouncements included,
Mr Hundal wanted us to know that,
Though not, I suspect, quite as much pleasure as Mr Hundal’s own extensive air travel adventures – flying halfway around the planet, twice, to India then California – adventures that were excitedly announced shortly before his declaration of support for Plane Stupid: “Honestly, I love these guys.”
Flying to India
Snerk. Chortle. Guffaw.
But actually I take WTP’s position. These people need to be exposed and slapped down hard. They clearly can’t be shamed.
You can’t just throw somebody’s philosophy back in their face. Can you?
Such pieties are very often a kind of camouflage for quite vain and obnoxious people. People whose own hypocrisies and dishonesties, however glaring, do not appear to embarrass them. Consequently, they’re difficult to shame.
They’re the kind of unspanked little tossers who do things like this while applauding themselves, and who conflate “not being heard” with not being obeyed. The kind of unspanked little tossers who film themselves pouring oil onto busy roads, an act morally analogous to sabotaging the brakes of random cars and motorbikes.
This is who they are.
Saucy girl.
No, don’t thank me.
“They clearly can’t be shamed”, but they can be disrupted as they disrupt others. Shirley, they can’t complain when their cars or houses are failed with a paint or powder from ‘Let’s Keep Oil’ activists, when people prevent them from going shopping, to the gym, or the latest JSO sing song. Someone must know where they live. Perhaps some similar inconvenience in their lives or routines, while remaining within the law, could be considered justified?
Erotic scenes.
The activist-wanker caste is narcissism on the hoof.
Oh. My.
Again, no need to thank me. It’s all part of the service.
Erotic scenes.
Her back boobs are bigger than her front boobs.
And to think, until moments ago, I was unfamiliar with the concept of back boobs.
[ Writes down back boobs. ]
[ Underlines. ]
I was unfamiliar with the concept of back boobs.
One of the off-colour jokes I remember from my inappropriate uncle was:
Q: What’s the definition of a loser?
A: A woman who puts her bra on backwards and it fits.
The lady in the video would require a bigger cup size to pull off the old switcheroo.
One of the big fallacies of pop culture is to lose your inhibitions, be free, have fun. But inhibitions keep you out of jail and keep you from saying or doing things that get you fired.
One aspect of losing your inhibitions is to just have sex with whoever. The big problem with this from a purely practical standpoint (besides the morality of it) is that sex is powerful for bonding but do you really want to bond with someone who is crazy, violent, a criminal, careless, indifferent to your needs? Not a great idea.
Wife and I are in “discussion” as to whether or not I shall post that on Farcebook. Heh. Ooh…heh…
B-b-but it’s “just sex”. Believing anything else is just stooooopid. Just ask anyone.
One aspect of losing your inhibitions is to just have sex with whoever. The big problem with this from a purely practical standpoint (besides the morality of it) is that sex is powerful for bonding but do you really want to bond with someone who is crazy, violent, a criminal, careless,
I just finished re-watching “I Claudius” on a recommendation from this blog. Claudius is meeting with his “doctor” who is going over the conditions Claudius has had and he says, “gonorrhea, syphilis, etc.” Then, of course, he also marries Messalina (who enters a contest with a prostitute to see who can wear out the most men) and later marries Agrippina (who sleeps with her son Nero). Of course, this is centuries before the fall of Rome. So, everything old is new again?
So glad that I make a habit of not clicking. I don’t really wonder what I missed…
Oh look, an Amazon button…
I have a theory…and of course I’m just a dumb quasi-ignorant stupid low class b@stard who at best was excreted from a land grant college…but a theory nonetheless from a guy who has done his own outside-teh-Narrative readings of history…that given the very impressive things that were built during Nero’s reign, including the extremely impressive palace that was built for him, that maybe…perhaps…roll with me on this if just for entertainment purposes…Nero was actually a decent, respectable, efficient…possibly orange…character who did all the *right* things but ran afoul of the establishment who knew they couldn’t Akhenaten-ate him so they destroyed his legacy with extraordinary BS. Now I of course have been too…lazy…to flush out the proper research to support my theory. It’s just a whim more than anything. But given that I’m the only person whom I know who can name more than five Roman emperors and probably only know a half dozen or so who can name more than three, I don’t have many people I can bounce my wild-hair theories off of. I (likely…perhaps) only mention this because I’m four…maybe five…glasses deep into martini/wine/whiskey/bourbon pours. Just submitted for your consideration…
and of course I’m just a dumb quasi-ignorant stupid low class b@stard who at best was excreted from a land grant college
Something we can finally agree on 😉
Hey, what happens in Julio Claudian Rome stays in Julio Claudian Rome.
@WTP
I remember a lecturer mentioning a quote by some ancient author that for many years, Nero’s tomb often had fresh flowers on it, suggesting that many plebs found his reign to be good. I heard this many years ago, and no quote or reference was provided, so I cannot confirm this.
[ Post updated. ]
I laughed and I’m not sorry.
It’s ruining his Disney trip.
suggesting that many plebs found his reign to be good
Also worth highlighting a statement in the Talmud (and bearing in mind that the Jews weren’t exactly best buddies with the Romans) that Nero was an ancestor of Rabbi Meir, one of Judaism’s most revered sages. (Hm, another point of comparison with a controversial political figure who has Jewish descendants…)
That.
[…] a 12-month referral order and ordered to pay £1,500 compensation […]
For doing £200,000 of damage.
Well worth a chuckle.
Am I supposed to be sympathetic?
Well, it does reveal which concern – or rather, which pretension – was deemed of more importance by Mr Hundal, and doubtless by many of his ‘progressive’ peers. On the one hand, professed solidarity with working-class people, a staple pretence. And on the other, fashionably perverse activism – expressed via the medium of vandalism and recreational sociopathy – but which working-class people overwhelmingly despised, and in no uncertain terms.
It does rather give the game away.
And as we’ve seen, it’s a game still being played fourteen years later.
They filmed themselves doing it.
So much for delusion of some on the right wing that women and sexual minorities will wake up and realize that Conservative Principles protect them better against Islam than the left wing coalition that resolves all contradictions by doubling down on “we’re all oppressed by white men”. Looks like the conservative there was protected by Muslims, and Muslim women at that, against the sexual minorities. Pretty clear who the winner is. Interesting how much more resolute a person can be if (1) they reject the initial trans premise and don’t get into the weeds, and (2) they’re certain that their friends will back them up.
However, needlessly deferring to a faulty premise, even a ludicrous affectation, is very much in fashion:
For instance.
This lady has a conundrum, wrapped in an enigma, inside a BFO. (the sweatshirt is a hint).
Theodore Dalrymple noted once that high intelligence is not a pre-requisite to being a physician.
This lady has a conundrum, wrapped in an enigma, inside a BFO. (the sweatshirt is a hint).
I’m just going to leave this here.
A quick Google books check shows it’s from Suetonius • Life of Nero, according to the Cambridge Companion to the Reign of Nero.
From back boobs to Suetonius in one thread. Sometimes this place positively reeks of class.
Now I of course have been too…lazy…to flush out the proper research to support my theory
I minored in Classical Studies, and this is already a fairly well-regarded opinion. So you’re in good company.
One of my CS profs used to say that we really ought to call it “historiography”, rather than “history”, as it’s not the study of what happened as much as it is the study of what people wrote about what happened. And throughout most of human history, having the skill, materials and time to write anything was the privilege of a rare elite few.